Giant Fake Marker Storage Tube

 Its another one of those "pop in post" postings. Posting when ever I can post. Only bare with me since I haven't been getting much sleep lately and then there's the fact I'm super busy. A nice combination to make you sleepy and lazy. Might make my writing a bit lazy too.

Anyhow this time I'm featuring a cool way of storing all those posters you have laying around taking up needless space all over the place.  Basically you take a boring old poster tube and make it look like a giant marker. A much nicer way of storing all those posters out of the way. You can now display it on a wall next to a giant pencil like I have or make a giant container such as a giant pencil case. Its up to you. Hears how you can make one. 

You need one empty poster tube. A good place to find one for free is possibly in a not so dirty dumpster. Usually containing cardboard of various things such as boxes. Or maybe get a used one from the mail. Or going the paid rout, you can get one from a post office, parcel service office or office supply place. Its up to you. Then you can then design a template with your favorite image editing program. If you don't have one there's are many free ones online available to download. And or you can use a template I designed as a starting point. It cuts down on some of the work. (template will be uploaded at a later date)You also need a large white sheet of some kind to cover the tube so you can have a nice clean slate to glue and stack your designs on the tube to make it look like a marker. A nice white sheet of paper is best. I happen to have a few things like old shiny scrap papers that I have been saving in my odds and ends closet. Also helps to have a marker for a reference for inspiration. I myself used a design marker. You can use any type as inspiration or just come up with something you like. Once you have every thing ready its time to simply bring it all together. 

I decided to make my fake marker red.  I put a personal spin on my design as well. My marker poster tube is currently sitting in my miniature basement studio next to the giant pencil. Its a nice souvenir from Croatia given to me by a dear friend. She's past away now.

The following pics are examples of my process and end result. Enjoy! 

Empty boring poster tube. 🔺

Close up of finished fake marker poster tube. 🔺

I already had some other paper such as this red paper that I added to indicate the colour of the marker. But you can add colour with paint or whatever method you like.

More pics of the finished fake marker poster tube. 🔺

What it looks like on a wall. How fun!  🔺 

Can't see the giant pencil I know but its there. Trust me. 

 

Great! I hope you enjoyed my latest project. I hope you try and make your own. I'm tired and I'm going to bed now. Good night! 😪Zzzzzzzzzzzzz

Originally posted on late Wednesday night or early Thursday morning.  What ever.......

Pansies in progress

Another flower based post I guess. This time a work in progress. 
Currently working on an airbrushed image to go on a fitted sheet. Problem is that when I originally purchased the sheet I was expecting it to be a cloth even if it was mostly polyester. When I opened it up was more like a shower curtain.😕 Oh well, so it forced me to do more steps then I originally planed. So I airbrushed on a separate white cloth. Its going to be sewn on to the fitted sheet later.
First I just free handed my desired images. Then airbrushed them. No masking. Just penciled in. They’re a group of pansies. But I won’t bother cutting them out of the excess material. Just going to sew it on. Its only for me after all. 

Home made Easter card 2019

Oops looks like I made a small "boo boo" in the last one or two postings of my monarch butterfly series. But they're all fixed now and the mistake was not a big deal but it would have bugged me to no end. 

Now for some spring time fun. An Easter card I made last year for a friend. Al little late but it still is technically spring. Its fun to look at none the less. But then there are Christmas related things to boost moral being shown too in different media forms so who cares? And besides if I don't I may never show it off. It just accumulates and all that. Also will be showing soon, other card creations with various degrees of fun.😊

 Some envelope art a bumble bee.🔺

  Also some envelope art a bumble bee holds a basket and other Easter symbols. 🔺

 

 The card cover art. A bumble bee with a basket of eggs and real pressed flowers. 

Some more art in the card featuring another bumble bee and more pressed flowers. 

Created the card with real flowers I collected the previous year. Some snap dragons and some type of blueish flower that later turned more purple when I pressed and glued them to cardboard to make them more workable.  Other media used, water colours, markers, coloured pencils. Cardboard and construction paper used as well as watercolour paper with texture. I tried to stick to bright colours instead of overusing the colour black for the obvious bee stripes. 
I hope you like it. 😊

Leopard patch

   I have this purse and I only had it for a few years. This is the type of purse that's a bit on the pricey side of things and I really didn't feel like getting rid of it so soon. So I did a bit of exploring to see what type of patches are out there. Didn't exactly like what I saw. Lots and lots of cheep looking Chinese made patches. Probably only worth 50'cents or lower but sold at a 5 bucks a pop or higher at a fabric shop. Looked in other stores too but the selection was even worse. So I decided to make my own. I first looked at what I had, did some thinking, some more exploring at craft stores est and then looked at my purse some more. Thought to my self. Lets make paw prints and a lounging leopard. I mean why not? I already had found a discarded umbrella cover I saved in my junk box with that same theme to cover up some buckles that always seemed to come apart on my purse. 
So I quickly drew up a cute lounging leopard on some tracing paper. I used tracing paper or parchment paper to first plot out all those holes on my purse. So that's why the leopard is lounging the way it is. The paw prints were for the holes that weren't so close together. So anyways I drew my leopard pattern on the pattern of mapped out holes. Then I found parts of some old jeans. They were remnants that I also saved earlier for these types of purposes too. Comes in very handy. 
I then drew out some paw prints and that leopard on to the scraps of jean materials. I ended up drawing out 3 paws and the leopard. Later I painted them up with some acrylic fabric paint using a regular old brush. I used mostly browns and yellow. Nothing fancy because that would come later. I ended up purchasing some fake plastic jewellery findings mostly shiny gold colour and another sheet of multi coloured gems cause I couldn't just get the right green ones that were the right size for the eyes. Just as well I can save those for another project. So anyways I sewed them all on my now coloured up patches. When finished I gave them a good clear coating for added protection. Later pilfered some "Shoe Glue" from my dad and then cut off the remaining jean material that remained on my embellished shapes. I find "Shoe glue" really great and handy stuff to patch on patches on to things. 
And here you have the finished product. Hope you like it. 😊

 Some different views of my embellished purse with the finished patches.

Turkey card

Now posted in my personal web site the blue sweater with shinny stars. 

Butttt oh what's this a lovely card I made last year with a Thanks Giving theme. 
I felt bad last year for missing my friends birthday so I made her this lovely card featuring this makeshift turkey in the tradition of children's craft art. OK they usually make it out of a hand prints but this is like the whimsical version for grown ups. 
I used a fancy fall leaf from a Chinese/Japanese maple as the tail. The leaf was preserved last year. Then I took scraps of construction paper shaped it in to the other parts of the turkey. Before I glued them on, I coloured patterns of feathers, face and other things that you would see on a turkey with coloured pencil and markers. I glued them all on a scrap of water coloured paper cut and folded in to a nice card, but not folded in the usual way. Picture a wet floor sign. I kind of was going for something different anyways. Pretty pleased with the whole results. Needless to say she was quite pleased too. And oh yeah I did remember to give her a nice card (another home made)this year for her birthday. I made sure I didn't forget. Wrote it on all kind of calendars and it does help to make things a head of time too. 
Anyways Happy Thanks Giving 🌰🍗Canadian version. But its also good for the American version too. 😁

Fall wreath

New this fall. A fall wreath I finished making last year or was that the year before. Oh well but I never got around to show it off yet until now. I actually started it earlier then that, but didn't have all the material gathered. I stared by harvesting a few grape vines in the fall since we have an abundant supply of grape vines that no longer have to support grapes. Why should I have to purchase a grape vine if I can make one after all. Then I slowly bound them one vine at a time with regular non coloured twine till a round wreath was formed. It was easier then struggling just binding them at once. Of course I had to place it aside till I had the right things to decorate with. But at the time I wasn't sure what that would be, but I know it had to say autumn to me. Eventually I settled on decorating it with leaves but I really didn't wanna use real leaves. I knew that I wanted it to last more then just two years. So I ended up purchasing some really lovely artificial leaves I saw at the dollar store. They were just a simple bunch of plastic leaves fastened to a wire branch.  I took a few of them apart and glued them on with some hot glue. Then I placed a few fake plastic berries onto the wreath I found on my walk that I chucked in to my junk box earlier. Its amazing what you can forage for on a walk even if its just a piece of discarded trash. Human nature provides. 😉
Since we have lots of snails on our property I had to place a few of those lovely snail shells all around the wreath too.  No live snail was harmed in the making of my seasonal term. All were vacated anyhow.  To finish off the wreath I applied a nice clear acrylic varnish to really enhance the shells and it really protects quite well too. 
So here it its a lovely one of a kind fall wreath to grace a front door and make people happy. 😊

It looks more impressive in person.

 

Humming Bird feeder 2

Humming bird feeder2 is made out of an old Ferrero Rocher egg I collected years ago. Then I burned several holes at the top of the egg and burned an opening at the top as well so that I can pour the food in. I later placed a cork on that opening and as usual glued some nice fake flowers and beads to make the openings for food access look more appealing. Then I put it on another ring of grape vines I collected from the garden together with a small plastic net I also collected years ago. Good for stability. I have yet to see if any of my feeders will attract the little hummers since I was way too busy with yard work this year.

Farm or Chicken magnet

I kind of mistakenly bought this little magnet thinking it was a pack of sampling canvases and lo and behold it was a little magnet. I wanted to buy a pack of sampling canvases so that I could make a few tests for a project I was working on at the time. So I took advantage of it and converted an old chicken fridge magnet in to a farm scene magnet. I hand painted the little farm in the background and then added the old chicken magnet on top. Turned out pretty nice. 😊

 Its kind of tiny so its not that detailed. But it is cute. 😊

A little something old. Fandome wise.

How do you like my new pillow/cover? 

Finally got this very old project completed, based on a Garfield calendar I got when I was in my last year of grade school. Yup there it stayed all those years in the back of my little yellow plastic basket collecting years of dust together with other odds and ends of threads and maybe a few dreams too. The other half of the pillow still stuck in my head. Well the tiger patterned cover part. Anyways yeah 1988 all the way to 2015 and finished it a few months ago actually. Just never got around to showing it. The majority of the cross stitching was done on the cover but there was just a few spots that needed to be completed plus the cover. I had plenty of the tiger material left over when I actually had a costume made also in the same year as 88.

Oh the reason why I first made it was well, I was stuck in bed for a few weeks with the chicken pox. Well, more weeks then what was required to recover. That was because it was also a very traumatic time and year. It was just my luck that my mother had yet another bout with manic depression. It was horrible. I had to endure lots of strange behaviour and in later repeating years, all kinds of strange actions, sometimes scary and shouting from her, but that's another story. Then of course there was grade school its self. That always was a real hell hole to me.

I was a kid. Who in the world would stand up, be on my side and protect me from all this craziness? No one. No man as in humans anyways. ;) It was all tough nuggies for me.

Actually I did have for awhile my former next door neighbour and best friends but that welcome was busted after awhile. So much for knowing them since I was a toddler. So much for best friends forever. Life goes on. :_(  *broken heart*

Note;

Please note that my mother's issues are no longer that intense since her hysterectomy she had a number of years ago. That and the fact she now sticks to her meds which is just right for her needs, her and ours walk with Jesus Christ. But she still has her occasional weirdness. Don't we all.

Since being stuck in bed for so long, I had already completed other projects and ran out of the pre-designed needle point and cross stitching stuff. (Some of it hangs on the walls to this day. ) I needed more stuff to occupy and distract me instead of vegetating in front of the TV all day so I made my own design hence that's where the Garfield calendar came it.

Back then I was a pretty big fan of Garfield and besides the comics I was lucky enough to get, I tried to get at least one stuffed Garfield. But that was hard since I had no one to gift those to me. That was pretty much common for me. So many times I would make my own stuff based on my favourite things.

Yeah I eventually managed to get a teenie stuffed Garfield from someplace and an Odie from a Mc Donald’s.

I have those to this day sitting in my bedroom on display on an old handmade record (record player) desk I like to call it. 

This pic obtained from an Ebay user/seller who was selling the calendar. But yeah again I have the calendar myself. Just got too lazy to scan my own. Love this calendar. :)

The illustration I used for the project. Image from someone else's blog.

So yeah here it is my cute Garfield pillow based on a favourite scene from a Garfield Year of the Party 88 calendar. Hopefully I won't have any other really old projects to complete. But hay at least I don't give up on things. That has to count for something. Am I right? 

 What the back of the pillow looks like.

Various pics of my kitty Meetso with the pillow. 

He decided to look out the window for any unsuspecting potential victims. Aka tasty little morsels. ;)

 Hay? where's my face on a pillow?

Pillow featured soon on my personal web site as well. 

Carved Style Easter Egg Set

Well its finally here. A few months late but still worth it I think.

Inspired by those extremely fragile Easter eggs intricately carved by dentist drills. Chicken all the way to ostrich eggs are used. There a bit like those Faberge eggs only they aren’t as elaborately decorated with gold and what not.

For those that use Illustrator, I chose not to make or use that function we call the pattern function. I think it would have been too complicated for that anyways. So I guess it took longer. But then again it doesn't help to have to name every object and every layer. So tediously time consuming but necessary. Just wish there was something to help me name every layer and object faster. 

I have here first the basic egg. The second is the polished style and bonus a chocolate version. 

 The following are some interesting close ups.........

There is a second version in this set on the way but again I'm currently in the process of naming every object and layer. Again very tedious. Oh well. Well worth the quality in the end.

Also will be viewable on my web site soon.

Thanks for viewing. :)

Deco shelled face plate

Just perfect for summer vacation time, not that I'm going on a vacation any time soon. :(

Oh well but I have gone in the past and collected these wonderful shells from Florida.

I like to use them every now and then like this project for instance. But not all of them. I'd like to save some of them for reference after all. :)

Anyhow I had this really boring and ugly old light switch face plate I had to look at every day for several years now and I finally had it. Since I always wanted a tropical themed design for my house but currently can't, :( I decided to at least add my personal touch to at least my personal space. The bed room.

I took one brand new plain Jane light switch face plate and I first painted it with a special acrylic that simulated the inside of a shell. A sort of a pearly white look. I then glued an assortment of shells and arranged it in a certain pleasing way. Then finally clear-coated it with an acrylic gloss and for the finishing touches added some simulated pearls.

Now I have something to switch on with a bit of class. 

 Before^

 After^

 Some close ups

Encore of eggs

Tisket n tasket, one last look of my basket.......of eggs.  This is how they were meant to be seen. 

Happy Easter Egg

April showers brought these May flowers, on this egg. OK, so its not a real egg and the flowers are imaginary. The lettering isn't even real gold but it is my artwork seeded by my imagination.

But can't you just smell the flowers and doesn’t the gold lettering just glisten on the Happy Easter part?

I think the last Easter egg in this series is my most favorite which is suprising considering that most of the time my favorite stuff feature animal themes and or stuff with toons on them. 

Yup its the last egg but fear not, new things are always in the making.

Kind of fitting don't you think? 

Bottom of egg^

Top of egg^

 Easter greeting how it was meant to look. ^

See the previous completed eggs.

Polka-dot-egg, Tulip-and-Camomile-egg, Canada-and-Croatia egg, Resurrection-egg, Hen-egg, duck-egg.

Duck egg

A little belated in the show n tell sorry about that.

Its been so nice outside I took care of some of the outdoor stuff.

Anyways What goes well with April showers? A family of ducks of course. 

It was worth making many pics of the egg since this one has so much to see. 

If you look closely you will even see a bonus creature that loves the water. 

 Bottom of egg. See the fishy? ;)

Top of egg. That design on top depicts a rainy cloud. A favorite of our wet friends.

And as always here are the previous eggs shown. 

Polka-dot-egg, Tulip-and-Camomile-egg, Canada-and-Croatia, Resurrection-egg, Hen-egg.